Assessment of the impact

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Alcohol education what works? 3rd European Forum
for responsible drinking, Brussels, 19 October
2005

• Assessment of the impact
• of drink-driving campaigns
• Jean-Paul Repussard
• European Commission,
• Dir. Gen. Energy Transport,
• Unit Road Safety

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Road safety and drink-driving(background)

• Road safety a major societal issue
• EU25 in 2004 43.000 fatalities more than 2
  million injured persons
• Too slow decrease
• ¼ of fatal accidents involve drink-driving

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Saturday Night Fever(people aged 18-25) 2.000
fatalities / year
EU15, week end peaks more than 2.000
fatalities/year
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Saturday Night Fever not in all Countries
France
Spain
United Kingdom
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Fighting against drink-driving

• A combination of various measures
• Legislation maximum limit of blood alcohol
  content (BAC)
• Enforcement road side checks, blood analysis,
  sanctions
• Awareness campaigns
• Technical solutions e.g. alcolock

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BAC limits (national legislations)

• There should be more harmonised BACs within the
  EU to provide a clearer and more consistent
  message to drivers
• Lowest BAC limit in some central Europe Countries
  (0,0 mg/ml)
• In some Countries 0,2 mg/ml
• In most Countries 0,5 mg/ml
• Upper limit 0,8 mg/ml (UK)
• Lower BAC limits in some Countries for specific
  categories of drivers (e.g. inexperienced
  drivers, drivers of heavy goods, buses and
  vehicles carrying dangerous goods, motorcyclists
  under 18 years of age)

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The European Road Safety Action Programme
(2003-2010)

• HALVING THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS BY 2010
• A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

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The EU instruments

• Legislation when necessary
• Best practice guidelines
• Research and studies
• Financial support to projects
• Road accident data and information
• The Road Safety Charter

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Drink-driving Commission Recommendation (17
January 2001)

• After the failure of a proposal for a directive
• (13 years in discussion )
• BAC limits
• Random breath testing
• Harmonisation of measurement standards for breath
  testing equipment
• information exchange of best practices
• Support for research
• Support for Europe-wide publicity campaigns
• Coordinating the use of alcohol-related road
  accident data records

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Enforcement Commission Recommendation (21
October 2003)

• Aim improving road safety through implementation
  of national enforcement plans and information of
  the public in three areas speeding,
  drink-driving and non-use of seat belt
• On alcohol
• Application of random breath testing with alcohol
  screening devices and use of evidential breath
  test devices
• Member States should apply as a general policy
  that violations are followed-up with effective,
  proportionate and dissuasive sanctions
• If a person has a structural drinking problem
  imposing a remedial measure
• Follow up (ongoing) monitoring of the
  implementation of the recommendation by Member
  States
• Towards a proposal for a directive on enforcement
  (speeding, drink-driving, seat belts) in 2006?

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Other Commission initiatives

• Alcohol Interlock implementation in the EU
  (feasibility study, 2001)
• Technical requirements including reliability and
  proof against fraud and tampering
• For which target groups an alcolock would be most
  appropriate/effective?
• Legal requirements and limitations for
  application of alcolocks legal aspects need to
  be thoroughly investigated
• Alcolock project (January 2004 - June 2006)
• Implementation in the EU?
• An in-depth qualitative field trial

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Other Commission initiatives

• ANDREA (completed)
• Analysis of Driver Rehabilitation Programmes
• Which of the existing courses are effective and
  what aspect of the courses is responsible for
  positive effects?
• One of the target group was drunk drivers.
• Road safety performance indicators (RSPI)
• Developing a tool for evaluating the results of
  road safety policies
• Definition of a set of 7 RSPI, including
  drink-driving
• Harmonisation of data among EU25 Member States
  CH NO (via transformation rules)
• Publication of harmonised results
• Recommendation to Member States where RSPI are
  not available
• Started in 2004, should be completed by 2007 or
  2008

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DRUID a new major RTD project (2006-2009)

• Driving impairments due to alcohol, drugs and
  medicines
• Scientific knowledge on alcohol is obsolete
• Scientific knowledge on drugs medicines is weak
• Their combination ?
• Objective
• Analysis of the influence of consumption of
  psychoactive substances on fitness to drive
• Contents
• Epidemiologic reference studies should be
  analyzed in combination with enforcement (road
  side checks, testing equipment, withdrawal of
  licences), rehabilitation measures of persons
  regularly using and abusing such substances and
  with education of specialists and information of
  the public in order to guarantee an integrated
  approach to this complex problem.

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DRUID (2006-2009)

• Expected outcome
• Reference studies of the impact on fitness to
  drive for alcohol, illicit drugs and medicines.
• Fixing thresholds defined for driving a
  power-driven vehicle.
• Evaluation of the best tracking devices.
• Define a labelling system corresponding to
  European classification.
• Define rehabilitation schemes for drivers.
• Define strategies of driving bans.
• Define the doctors' legal responsibility.
• Information for the general public.

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• About
• road safety campaigns

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The EU support to campaigns

• Road safety campaigns are recognised as a
  relatively economic means of influencing a major
  fraction of drivers towards a better behaviour.
• EuroBOB (designated driver, since 2002) 13
  Member States now involved (BE, CZ, DK, EL, ES,
  FR, IE, IT, MT, NL, PL, PT, UK)
• NESA (nuit européenne sans accident) an action
  to make young drivers aware of the influence of
  alcohol (and drugs) on driving and to help them
  to become responsible drivers 7 Member States
  involved in 2004 (BE, EE, ES, FR, LU, NL, PL), 3
  more in 2005, etc.
• Red Cross (3 campaigns so far targets children
  teen-agers
• EUCHIRES (seat belts child restraint systems)

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Are road safety campaigns effective?

• In some Countries, the campaigns against
  drink-driving are evaluated.
• Positive outcome campaigns are well perceived,
  well accepted and have a good notoriety road
  users recognise that drink driving is a major
  problem
• But how effective are the campaigns???
• A mass media campaign is most of the time a part
  of an integrated campaign (e.g. stronger
  enforcement).
• How to isolate the impact of various inputs
  (enforcement, campaign, etc.)?

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Are road safety campaigns effective? The CAST
RTD project (2006-2008)

• CAST Campaigns and Awareness-raising
  Strategies in Traffic safety
• 22 Institutes in the consortium (leader
  IBSR/BIVV, BE)
• 15 participating Countries BE, CH, CZ, DK, DE,
  EL, FR, IT, NL, NO, AT, PL, PT, SI, SE
• 340 man-months over 36 months
• Total cost 5.3 m
• EU grant 3.2 m

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CAST

• Aims
• To develop an evaluation tool and a design tool
  for road safety mass media campaigns (i.e. any
  road safety campaign, not just campaigns against
  drink-driving)
• To enable the Commission and/or Countries to
  design and implement such campaigns and to
  evaluate their (isolated) effect on traffic
  accidents and other road safety performance
  indicators.

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CAST organisation

• Six work packages (WP)
• designation WP leader (Country)
• Road user model IBSR/BIVV (BE)
• Evaluation tool TØI (NO)
• Manual INRETS (FR)
• Evaluation VTI (SE)
• Pan-EU campaign IBSR/BIVV (BE)
• Dissemination PRP (PT)

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CAST organisation
WP1 Road user model

• Overall
• coordination,
• Quality
• assurance,
• Advisory
• group

WP6 Dissemi- nation
WP2 Evaluation tool
WP3 Design tool
WP4 Evaluation
WP5 Pan-EU campaign
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CAST WP1 (road user model)

• Tasks
• Workshop on theories of behaviour and effects of
  campaigns (state of the art)
• Effects of campaigns on behaviour and accidents,
  campaign strategies and best practices
• Road user behaviour and behaviour models
• Key elements for evaluation
• Outputs
• Results of meta-analysis (to be published in a
  scientific journal)
• Road user model (i.e. parameters that should be
  observed and measured)

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CAST WP2 (evaluation tool)

• Tasks
• Constructing a tool for the evaluation of a
  single road safety campaign
• Listing a typology of evaluation methods
• Overview and comparison of research designs
• Elaboration of a best practice manual
• Constructing a tool for reporting effects of a
  single campaign in a standardized way
• Outputs
• Typology of evaluation methods
• Comparison of research designs
• Evaluation tool for a single campaign
• Checklist for reporting effects of single
  campaigns

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CAST WP3 (manual)

• (very few manual exist)
• Tasks
• Identification and selection of the target
  group(s) and identification of its
  characteristics
• Description of information and public awareness
  strategies
• Selection of communication methods for each
  target-group
• Criteria for evaluation
• Development of standards for reporting campaigns
• Output
• Manual to design and implement road safety mass
  media campaigns

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CAST WP4 (evaluation)

• Tasks
• Selection of a campaign
• Assessment
• Analysing the data
• Output
• Results of the evaluation of the campaign and
  relevant findings to validate the evaluation
  tools of WP2 (i.e. setting up of an evaluation
  tool)

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CAST WP5 (pan-EU campaign)

• Tasks
• Using and testing the design tool developed in
  WP3 (manual)
• Elaboration of the elements leading to a campaign
  (theme, objective, strategy, target group,
  running period, media plan)
• Implementation (specialized advertising,
  communication agencies and by the project
  partners themselves)
• Output
• Pan European road safety campaign

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CAST WP6 (dissemination)

• Tasks
• Presenting and distributing the reports and
  findings of all WPs - in particular, the manual
  (WP3) and the evaluation tool (WP2)
• Outputs
• 3 Workshops (SE, PL, EL)
• Conference (Brussels)
• 3 newsletters
• Web site
• Publications in scientific journals

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In a nutshell CAST will

• build on existing knowledge (methodological
  research) and experience,
• elaborate and describe a road user manual i.e.
  parameters that should be observed and measured,
• provide a methodologically sound and robust
  evaluation tool a checklist to standardize
  reporting methods,
• provide a manual for designing, developing and
  evaluating campaigns
• and finally,
• Contribute to increasing the efficiency of road
  safety campaigns.

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Websites on Europa http//europa.eu.int/comm/...

• Commission transport website transport/index_en.
  html
• Road transport section transport/road/index_en.
  htm
• CARE database transport/care/index_en.htm
• Driving licences transport/home/drivinglicence/i
  ndex_en.htm

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• Thank you
• for your attention!